To Give What Is Due
by The Pale Bride
Summary: Takaya stole his revenge, so he'll just have to steal it right back. Someone has to do it - and Ken might still be just a kid, but he knows better than to believe in lies like "second chances".  Alternate outcome of October 4th. Ken-centric.


**Disclaimer:** Persona 3 doesn't belong to me. ATLUS just has a cooler sandbox than mine.

**Warnings:** Self-harm, attempted suicide, character death, blood... and spoilers.

**To Give What Is Due  
**

All anyone at the dorm can talk about is how awful the members of Strega are, how cruel - but you're angry at them for another reason. Not just angry. You're so full of anger that there isn't room for anything else, so angry that you even yell at Koro when he tries to cheer you up. No amount of apologies, or sympathy, or offered hugs is going to make everything better, and nobody _understands_ that this is something only you can make right.

Nobody understands that you aren't upset because you almost died.

You're upset because Takaya ruined years of planning with a pull of the trigger.

It's not _fair_ that Takaya almost killed Shinjiro. He's an adult, with a _gun_ - while the rest of SEES curses his name, you can't help but envy him. Everything would be so much easier with a gun. You asked Sanada-san once if the Evokers could shoot real bullets, but he only looked at you funny and told you to stop watching so much television.

...maybe it's better this way, though. Thinking over your plans for October fourth, you wonder if you ever could have pulled them off. They _sounded_ nice, in your head, but now you feel like throwing up when you even think about impaling yourself on your spear. (You feel kind of stupid, too, because - it's taller than you are, how were you going to manage _that_? By standing on a chair?)

But you're not going to just _give up_. No way. You just have to plan better this time, and faster, too.

It's hard. Sneaking around behind the backs of your dormmates is practically _impossible_ when they're all so worried about you, and everyone keeps asking questions - are you okay? Are you coming to Tartarus tonight? Make sure you're back before curfew, all right? You just want to scream that no, you're _not_ okay, you haven't _been_ okay since SEES killed your mother and left you all alone, but you can't. You just can't. They'd only worry more if you did.

You manage to work around them, somehow. It takes a few days for your homeroom teacher to figure out who she should call to ask why you're skipping school, and that's a few days you get to spend in the city library, looking up all kinds of things from the relative privacy of a public computer. When Mitsuru-senpai corners you in the lounge you just shuffle your feet and mutter something about not feeling up to going to class, and instead of scolding you she gives you her most sympathetic smile and ruffles your hair.

That's pretty much the response you get at the drugstore, too, when you stop by just before curfew to spend a month's worth of Tartarus money on Tylenol and chocolate. All you have to do is scrunch up your nose and say your senpai is being really bossy today, and nobody looks at you twice.

Only a little harder is stealing a box cutter from the faculty office at school. You weren't really planning on it, but it was sitting _right there_ when you were talking to your homeroom teacher, and nobody noticed you slipping it into your pocket. A backup method is good in case the pills don't work, right? The thought of meeting Mom all covered in blood sort of turns your stomach, but it's better than not meeting her at all.

The hardest part is finding time to do it.

It has to be during the Dark Hour - that's obvious. But how are you going to pull that off without people asking questions? Every day you don't carry through is another day without Mom, and that _hurts_, but you just can't figure out how to slip out of the dorm unnoticed. There's always someone watching you these days.

And then Hamuko-san solves everything. "You look miserable," she says one night, when everyone's getting ready to leave for Tartarus. "Stay home, okay? Get some rest." Everyone leaves you alone, just like that, with a whole hour to spare before the Dark Hour hits. It's about time for something to go right.

You run upstairs for your backpack, tuck the Tylenol and the box cutter safely away in an inside pocket, and quietly slip out the front doors. The soft _thud_ of the door shutting behind you is awfully final, especially since you left your key inside. No backing out now. No way.

_Is it not permissible to kill those who are themselves killers?_ Takaya said that, just before he... you know. You're still angry, but you agreed with him then and you agree with him now. The law says it's okay. Even Shinjiro said it was okay. He was waiting for it, ready. And now he's unconscious, so he won't feel a thing.

His parents are dead too, right? So you're really doing him a favor, even though he doesn't deserve it.

_Those who are themselves killers._ With Takaya's words ringing in your head, you catch the last train from the station and head for Tatsumi Memorial Hospital. If anyone thinks it's weird for a grade-school student to be on his own this late at night, they don't say anything about it.

You get to the hospital just after the clock stops. It's a lot more creepy than you were expecting, with coffins everywhere you look and bloodstains on practically every surface - like something out of the horror movies you've never been allowed to watch. (Fighting Shadows is okay, but watching pretend violence isn't? Adult logic doesn't make any sense.) A shiver runs down your spine. Pulling your hood up around your face - and rubbing your cheek against the comfortingly soft fabric - you head for the stairs.

It's always a little unnerving to climb stairs during the Dark Hour, and the hospital feels more like Tartarus than the dorm ever has. Without Fuuka-san to keep a watchful eye on things you jump at every tiny noise, seeing Shadows everywhere you look; you start to regret leaving your spear behind at the dorm, even though there really isn't any way to take something like that on the train. The box cutter hidden in your backpack doesn't seem like it would make for much of a weapon.

The doors to the intensive care unit unlocked when the power went out, but they're heavy, and getting them open is a bit of a struggle. Finding Shinjiro's room is easy once you're inside, though. It's the only one with power - you're not really sure _how_, because nobody bothers to explain these things to little kids, but it's probably the same technology that makes the monitors up in the command room run. You edge around a pair of coffins by the door and slip inside.

Now it's _really_ too late to turn back.

Shinjiro looks... really sick. He's pale and thin, much thinner than you remember, and he's connected to more machines than you can count. There are wires and tubes everywhere, dimly lit by monitors and indicator lights. A steady beep like a mechanical heartbeat is the only real sign that Shinjiro's even alive.

Not for long.

The doctors said he couldn't breathe on his own, so you figure all you have to do is make the machines stop breathing for him. Even if you hadn't looked this stuff up at the library it would be easy to figure out how; there's a big tube sticking out of Shinjiro's mouth, and that has to be it. If you just pull that out, he'll stop breathing. If he stops breathing, he'll die. He'll _die_, and - and that's what he _deserves_, because he killed Mom and nobody ever made him pay for it!

It's a good thing nobody's around to hear you, because it takes a few minutes and a lot of noise to get the bed rail down so you can climb up onto the edge. The noise doesn't wake Shinjiro up - which really hits it home that _nothing_ is going to wake Shinjiro up. He can't wake up. He's practically dead already.

There's a lot of tape holding the tube down, and your hands start to shake as you grab the nearest strip and pull. This is so much further than you made it before; this is actually _doing_ something, not just talking about it, and it's more terrifying than anything you've ever faced in your life. Worse than watching Mom die. Worse than putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger. (Too bad you couldn't get your hands on a real gun - it would be _so easy_ to kill yourself that way, now that you're used to it.)

Once the last long strip of tape is free you wrap both hands around the tube, close your eyes, and...

You can't make yourself pull. Your hands won't stop shaking, and you just can't make them move the way you need them to. With your eyes closed it's like the world has narrowed right down to your tape-sticky, white-knuckled fingers and the jackhammer pounding of your heart, and even though you _know_ what you need to do you can't make yourself do it!

He _deserves_ it - without meaning to you whisper that out loud, and hearing it come back to you only makes you even more certain that they're true. You say it over and over, until the words don't sound like words anymore, until your mouth is dry and you can't force a sound past the lump in your throat - and in that final, now-or-never moment, you _pull_.

The tube must be stuck on something, because at first it refuses to budge, but you sit back on your heels and pull with all your strength and it finally comes free with a sick, wet sound soon overwhelmed by screaming alarms. It's covered in - maybe it's not really blood, maybe it's just the Dark Hour playing tricks, but it still makes you queasy, and you're quick to throw it over the side of the bed and out of sight.

Shinjiro makes you feel even worse, though, because even if he can't breathe on his own he's apparently still capable of _trying_. You stare, horrified, as he struggles, unable to block out the terrible gurgling sound he makes when he finally manages to take a breath. Blood mixed with spit trickles out of the side of his mouth as his lips work, silently, making the motions of gasping without enough air to carry through.

You originally planned to run him through with your spear like you would a Shadow, and you _know_ that wouldn't have been any more pleasant, but there's something about this that's impossible to stomach. You can't watch him dying like this, you just _can't stand it_, it's the worst thing you've ever seen in your life - but you can't look away, can't stop staring at the feeble movements of his lips.

Seconds slip by, maybe a full minute, even, and he _still isn't dead_, and you want to scream, tell him to just die already like he's supposed to, but you can't find your breath either. How can someone who isn't even conscious find the strength to fight this hard? None of the stuff you read told you anything about this, and you have no idea what to do. You can't just leave while he's still alive, but there isn't that much time left!

He takes another breath, and the sound of it chills you right down to the bone. Your hands grab for his pillow seemingly of their own accord, and by the time you realize what you're doing you've pressed the pillow over his face, desperate to muffle that awful noise before you have to hear it one more time.

Leaning over him, all your weight pressed right over his mouth and nose through the pillow, you beg Shinjiro - _order_ him, over and over, in a scared, shrill voice that doesn't sound like your own - to stop fighting and _die_.

When the panicked _beepbeepbeep_ of the heart monitor finally flattens out into one long tone, you can't keep yourself from crying. Sobbing, even, great big gasping sobs that shake your entire body and make it almost impossible to scramble off the hospital bed and out of the room; you only manage because you can't stand to be anywhere near Shinjiro's body. You want to be somewhere, _anywhere_ else, and only once you've sprinted the length of the intensive care unit and collapsed, trembling, onto a bench outside do you remember that you aren't done here.

_You killed Shinjiro_. It doesn't seem real, not even when you say it out loud. Your hands are too clean - aren't you supposed to have blood on your hands? But there's just tape residue and your own tears, and the only proof that you succeeded is the ringing in your ears from the alarms and the flatlining heart monitor. You don't feel accomplished, or proud, or - or anything, really, except more miserable than you've ever felt in your life, and you're still crying harder than you've cried in a really long time, and the last thing you want to do is find somewhere safe to finish carrying out your plans.

What you really want to do is run back to the dorm, and find Hamuko-san, and let her hug you and tell you that everything's going to be okay. When she says things like that you can't help but believe her. But Hamuko-san cared about Shinjiro, too, so she won't comfort you, not after what you've done. No one will comfort you. You don't deserve to be comforted. That's why you have to get up off this bench and find a place where nobody will find you, because killers don't deserve to live and you're too young for anyone else to execute you...

There's a bathroom down the hall, and that seems like as good a place as any. Everyone will be trying to deal with the alarms once the Dark Hour ends; nobody's going to have any time to go looking in locked bathrooms. That should give you enough time, right? And you don't think you can manage to leave the hospital and find somewhere else to go. You're trembling so badly you can barely walk.

It's freezing cold in the bathroom, and it smells gross; you don't think you could come up with a less welcoming place to die if you tried. But it's not like you deserve any better, so you dump out the contents of your backpack on the floor and grab the bottle of Tylenol. It's hard to get the cap off with your hands shaking so badly, and you feel so sick to your stomach that even the thought of swallowing makes you want to puke... but you don't have a choice, you remind yourself. You can't stop now. Not when you're almost done.

The first couple of pills, washed down with water from the sink, aren't so bad, and that gives you enough courage to swallow more by the handful. It's hard - there's a lump in your throat and you keep gagging, even throwing up a little in the back of your mouth. Stupid body. _You_ know how important this is, but your stomach doesn't want to listen!

At least nobody's watching. It's okay to cry when there's nobody to see it, but if someone were watching - Akihiko-san, or... or Hamuko-san...

That thought gives you enough strength to finish off the bottle, because Hamuko-san is going to be absolutely miserable when she finds out and you just can't stand the thought of seeing her like that. This way, you won't have to see her and she won't have to worry about what's going to happen to you. It's better for everyone, really - Mitsuru-senpai won't have to use her influence to get you out of trouble, and nobody will have to worry, and you'll be with Mom again. Soon.

You wipe your running nose and teary eyes on your sleeve, then grab the box cutter and sit down against the wall. The tile feels cold even through your clothes, but it's kind of nice, and calming, and for a minute or two you just sit and think. This is going to be the hardest part, isn't it? Pain doesn't scare you, because you've been beaten up by Shadows before, and nothing could possibly hurt worse than having Mom taken away from you... but it's still going to be really hard.

But you don't have a choice. Shinjiro took that choice away from you when he killed Mom, and all you can do now is carry through, years too late.

The bathroom gets a lot colder when you pull off your jacket and push up the sleeves of your hoodie, and you get goosebumps in seconds. Now you're shivering like crazy on top of the way you were already shaking, making it hard to hold the box cutter steady, but you guess that doesn't really matter. The cuts don't need to be neat, they just need to be _deep_. And vertical. You're having a hard time remembering everything that you read online, but you do remember that the cuts have to be vertical. _Down the road, not across the street._ It made you laugh when you read it and it makes you laugh now, just a little, but it comes out more like a pathetic-sounding sob.

Clutching the box cutter as tightly as you can in your left hand, you stretch out your right arm, take a deep breath, and bring the blade down as hard and fast as you can.

It doesn't hurt as much as you were expecting. The weirdest part is watching your skin just _split_, leaving an empty ditch for a split-second before the blood rushes to fill it. There's a _lot_ of blood, but that's a good thing, right? The faster you bleed, the faster you'll - die. Which is good. It's what you have to do. It's _stupid_ to be scared about it now, but you still hesitate before you make the second cut, because all the thinking and reasoning in the world, even taking the pills, didn't really prepare you for this.

The second cut is deeper, and it hurts more. You grit your teeth and cut again, and again, blindly lashing out when you can't see where you're cutting through the blood - there's _so much_ of it, all over your arm and your clothes, that you must have done it right. But you still have another arm to go, and you want to get it done before the blood loss really gets to you.

All the blood makes things slippery, and you nearly drop the box cutter a few times before you manage to slice open your left arm. It's easier to cut, though, with your dominant hand, and now that you know it's not the most painful thing you've ever felt you don't hesitate so much. It isn't until the fifth deep cut that you feel like you have to stop.

Have you done enough? You're not really sure. You feel weak, and tired, but that could be from crying so much - you don't think you've _ever_ cried this much and this hard in your entire life, and you still haven't really stopped. You try to wipe your nose on your sleeve again, but only manage to smear blood across your cheek and nose. There's blood _everywhere_. Which is good, but it's also scary, because you don't really know what it's like to bleed so much for any real length of time. Yukari-san always patches you up when you get hurt in Tartarus, so you really don't know... but you'll find out.

As you curl up on the cold floor, arms outstretched, the lights flicker on. The bathroom's far enough away that you can't hear the chaos as everyone finds out what happened to Shinjiro, but that's good - it means nobody can hear you, either. Nobody will think to look for you here, you're sure of it. All you have to do is wait... maybe you'll even fall asleep, and just never wake up. That sounds good, so you close your eyes and wait.

Soon you'll be with Mom, and nothing else will matter. It's enough to make you smile, even though it really hurts right now, and you can't really move your arms properly. Who cares? You won't need your arms when you're dead.

Sleep comes easily.

What isn't so easy is waking up.

You don't _want_ to. In fact, at first you aren't even sure if that's what's happening; you can hear things, but everything is sort of fuzzy and far away, and you wonder if you're even still alive. You can still move, though, and when you try to concentrate on what you're hearing it becomes clearer, at least for a second. It's hard to concentrate - your mind keeps wandering, and the only thing you can really focus on is how much your arms hurt.

Someone's banging at the bathroom door. That... that isn't good, is it? No one is supposed to find you. Maybe if you're quiet they'll go away.

They don't go away. There's more banging, and rattling, and someone yelling your name, and no matter how hard you wish for them to leave you alone they don't. It's not fair! You did everything right, you did _everything_ you could, and you're still going to get found, and saved, and locked up in prison or wherever they put kids who are too young for prison, and it's all because stupid Shinjiro didn't know how to use his stupid Persona...

After a particularly loud _bang_ the door swings open, and someone rushes to your side. "Ken-kun!" - and you can't find the energy to open your eyes, but you would know that voice anywhere. Any other time it would be comforting to hear Hamuko-san calling for you, but right now she's the last person in the world you want to be near. You try to tell her to go away, but all you can do is whisper her name in a voice that's too weak to sound like your own.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." She pulls you into her arms, cradles you against her chest like a baby, and you can't pull away. "Please tell me it's not your fault senpai is... please, Ken-kun, _please_ tell me you didn't hurt senpai!"

Even if you wanted to, you wouldn't be able to tell her that, or anything else. Talking is just too much effort. You shake your head a little and she bursts into tears - but she still holds you tight. Which doesn't make any sense, because... shouldn't she hate you? Shouldn't she...

...it's hard to think. Your thoughts drift out of reach every time you try to focus, and even Hamuko-san's crying seems very far away.

But you aren't going to die, now that they've found you. You tried _so hard_, and it's not _fair_, and now... now you won't get to see Mom...

Outside, people are yelling, swearing, giving orders, but you can't make yourself care. Any minute now they'll rush in and... and save your life, but... all that matters is how miserable Hamuko-san sounds. And how tightly she's holding you anyway.

You try to apologize, but the words - and everything else - slip away before you can.


End file.
